1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Deucalion

DEUCALION, in Greek legend, son of Prometheus, king of Phthia in Thessaly, husband of Pyrrha, and father of Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Hellenic race. When Zeus had resolved to destroy all mankind by a flood, Deucalion constructed a boat or ark, in which, after drifting nine days and nights, he landed on Mount Parnassus (according to others, Othrys, Aetna or Athos) with his wife. Having offered sacrifice and inquired how to renew the human race, they were ordered to cast behind them the “bones of the great mother,” that is, the stones from the hillside. The stones thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha, women.

See Apollodorus i. 7, 2; Ovid, Metam. i. 243-415; Apollonius Rhodius iii. 1085 ff.; H. Usener, Die Sintflutsagen (1899).